Things Change, And It's Not Always Bad
by Shadow in the Rain
Summary: After Things Change, things begin to change for Beast Boy as he searches for a new significant other. But every date he has ends in disaster.Maybe he'll find love closer than he thought, or maybe he'll just have to go to that stupid city formal alone.BBRa
1. Chapter 1

_Things Change… And It's Not Always Bad…_

_By Shadow in the Rain_

_Chapter 1: Breaking the Habit_

* * *

It was one of those nights where nothing went Beast Boy's way.

Exhausting training had taken up most of the day. He had hoped that that would be enough to let him fall asleep immediately for once, but, as usual, his mind wouldn't shut up… it whirled around and around, dragging up everything that he tried not to think about during the day, all of the stuff that lived in the shadowy corners of his mind that he tried so desperately to stay away from…

Specifically, he was thinking about…_her_. A lot of the stuff in those dark corners had to do with her. The thoughts wouldn't leave him alone, he couldn't escape…

And the same stuff kept coming back to him, but it wouldn't just freaking leave him alone…

_Maybe it was better this way._

_It hurt like hell, but things were definitely better this way._

So what if whenever he saw her something in his torso would jolt, and he would hope more than anything that she would acknowledge him, recognize him, run back to him and beg for forgiveness and everything would finally, finally, after the agonizingly long wait, be perfect?

Terra wasn't going to come back…and it was really time that he accepted that. Really, it would have been least heart-wrenching if he had just forgotten about her and moved on… but Beast Boy still saw her every so often…

The worst part was when he did see her… and she looked him right in the eyes…and there was nothing. No recognition, no greeting, just…_nothing_. And he knew that she remembered him. She had chosen to turn her back on that part of her life, had taken that opportunity to finally get away from herself, to abandon who she had been…

He didn't think about her as much as he had before… in fact, he could go most of the day without thinking about her.

But his subconscious was still infatuated with her… she haunted his dreams (even though no one else, not even his closest friends were there)…the ghost of an old love was more haunting than the ever-present best friends that he was so happy to have…

He knew he didn't love her. He had definitely liked her, but their relationship…all deception, all mirrors and darkness and he couldn't be sure that anything was actually real…even if he had loved her, he was unwilling to admit it. It couldn't have been love, seeing as their relationship had had so little substance…and true love is requited.

But… as unrequited love often becomes, any feelings he might have had for her had become a dark, all-consuming obsession that had pervaded every aspect of his life.

When he closed his eyes, _she_ was there, smiling before him, beckoning for him to step into the sunshine, leave all of the darkness behind…

Beast Boy's eyes snapped open, and he realized that this was the day that everything had to change.

Things had changed… maybe they had changed a long time ago and he never realized it… but how does one get over something that had been like a shadow over their life for so long? How do you make the ghosts disappear into the darkness, how do you make it all go away?

He didn't know. He just didn't know…

But maybe there was someone who did…

Jolting out of bed, all pretenses of sleeping forgotten, Beast Boy rushed out of his room, glad to finally have a distraction.

* * *

WAAAHOOO!!

I finally got another fic to float into my mind… actually I have a couple at the moment. Both Pokémon and Teen Titans stories. Originally, I was just rambling with this one (thought I'd maybe just post it as a one-shot) but then I realized that I could make it go with another fairly acceptable idea I have for a story. So yeah.

I think my goal for this one is to try and become a better writer... I have trouble coming up with ideas, and I don't know what I can do about that. Right now I'm at a place where I can only write something that I deem postable when I'm really really angry or upset, and besides the fact that I don't get that upset that often and the fact that I hate being that upset...I wanna get better. So I'm trying to do better with the writing process (like actually reading over and editing what I've done when it's not 2 in the morning... . )...so yeah. :) please tell me if you think my efforts are working, or if I should just abandon it all together. Muahaaha.

Nightmare, this one's for you… I'm gonna do my best not to let it die.

Oh, and also, as a side note, WHAT THE HELL AM I THINKING, starting antoehr fic??!!? My last few crashed and burned. Whatever…

OH, and it'll get funnier after this. This is just the necessary, deep-reflective part that has to come first. He's gotta get rid of his Terra problem before he can move on to other stuff. :)

Thanks so much for reading, send me a review if you feel like it, they make me happy. :)


	2. Chapter 2

_Things Change… And It's Not Always Bad…_

_By Shadow in the Rain_

Chapter 2: Talk About Your Psycho Ex Night

* * *

The burning energy that had propelled him to the main room seemed to evaporate by the time he got there, which might have had something to do with the sheer amount of meat that was being consumed in the room.

Cyborg, of course, was having a midnight snack that probably included a few herds of cattle, at least. Beast Boy slid into the booth across from him, after checking the fridge and finding it bare of anything vegetarian-friendly.

"Yo, BB, whassup?" Cy's voice was rather muffled due to his sandwich.

"Ehhm…" Beast Boy was swinging his feet back and forth underneath the table in a rather childish manner, trying to think of a good way to phrase the question that wouldn't make him sound like a desperate, heartbroken loser.

Taking a deep breath, he plunged into his question: "So let's say this um… friend of mine, named, uh, say, Char—yeah, that's it, Char. So Char really really liked this girl… Lara. Like, he really liked her. More than he'd ever really liked anybody else, y'know??

There was a few seconds of silence after BB finished his speech, in which Cy just stared at him, a smile twitching at his lips.

Then he laughed. And laughed. And laughed some—

"DUDE IT'S NOT FUNNY!!"

"Ahh, sorry BB," Cyborg said, "Well, if you need help getting over Terra—"

Beast Boy cleared his throat and glared at Cyborg.

"Ahem, I mean, if Char needs help getting over Lara, then he would probably do best if he well… saw other people and just stopped thinking about her."

"Uh-huh…"

"Uh-huh," Cy said, in a sort of final way. He got up and strolled out of the room, pausing just before the door to say, "Well, you be sure to pass that advice on to _Char_ so that he can, uh, get on with his life and just let it go."

After the doors had hissed shut, Beast Boy's head flopped to the table. He whispered, "But what if Char can't let it go?"

* * *

Just as the first rays of sunlight were about to appear on the horizon, Raven entered the OPs.

She stood over the teakettle, letting the warmth of the stove wash over her, relaxing. After a few moments (before the kettle whistled), she poured the water into a mug, and drifted over to the table, a tea bag floating behind her, seemingly of its own accord.

She settled into her seat, taking note of Beast Boy, slumped over across the table from her, asleep. His face was hidden, buried in arms that were crossed upon the table.

She took a sip of her tea, and then set it down on the table…the steam rising from it felt nice…

"Raven…"

She jumped a little. Maybe BB wasn't so asleep after all.

He lifted his head a little bit so that she could see just his eyes, but the rest remained hidden by his crossed arms on the table.

Raven recovered quickly from her surprise at his consciousness, nothing if not capable of resetting her face to neutral. She cocked an eyebrow at him.

"What did you do… to… to get over it?"

"Oh, because clearly there's only been _one_ thing in my life I've ever had to get over…" she replied dryly, now tracing a slender finger around the edge of the teacup, its contents still too hot to drink.

"_Him_."

She resisted the urge to use her mind to flick the steaming hot teabag at his face for continuing to be so vague—again, there had been more than one _him_ that she had had difficult dealings with in the past—and why did he look so sad—_oh_.

She had sensed the continued restlessness and sadness in him—the restlessness was more apparent, the sadness was quieter, soft notes hidden behind the cacophony of _can't sit still_ _gotta move gotta move _that had clung to him more strongly than usual. She had grown (somewhat) use to dealing with his rather topsy-turvy mind as a constant, often uncomfortable close presence—all of the warring instincts, the constant shifting focus, and the sheer _intensity_ of many of the human emotions that did break through the sound barrier of the animal desires warring within him. Her head hurt for the first few weeks, and she had been, on some level, terrified that the loudness of the animal kingdom that he carried with him everywhere would blot out the small, weak, human voice that was almost an afterthought.

Wait, no, no getting lost in thoughts, he had asked her something—right. Apparently it was going to be Talk About Your Psycho Ex Night. She wasn't quite sure if she was up for that just now. (And that had absolutely _nothing_ to do with that little lurching pull she was starting to, inexplicably, _bafflingly_ feel for him. Nothing_. Really_.)

"Malchior?"

He nodded.

She sighed almost imperceptibly, except perhaps to his sharp ears.

"I moved on because I had to." _Because you can't just stand there with a broken heart in your hands and dumb expression on your face forever. _

"But… how?"

She sighed again, looked back down at her tea. Wondered how many laps her fingers had made around the lip of teacup. How many laps would it take to worry the thing away to dust?

Slowly, she said, "You just try not to think about it as much as possible." _And try not to drown in it in the meantime.

* * *

_

AN: Alrighty, I actually wrote another chapter. I know, I'm shocked too. I kind of forgot this story existed, and if it weren't for the pokings and proddings of a few reviewers (namely the lovely ravengal) this chapter wouldn't exist. I actually wrote like… half of it probably a year ago. If you can see where I picked up again this year, you get a cookie. I think the change in style is pretty drastic, but I could be perceiving things wrong. Also, I wrote the whole second half of this in one go and it's about three in the morning and I'm listening to Pink Floyd and insomnia is a _bitch_.

So. Let me know what you guys think (BECAUSE I KNOW THERE ARE PEOPLE READING THIS. AHAHAHAHAHA.) because I feel like I might have _totally_ lost the feel of the characters after such a long time away from them. Raven especially, but then again, she was kind of the only character I really had to write in this bit.

That's all! Thanks so much to everybody who reads and reviews, it means a lot to me!


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